by Ephrem Fernando
What is beyond dispute is the tact of duality. After one comes not three or four but precisely two. Duality means the existence of two independent principles or powers. For example the distinction between good and evil or spirit and mind. These fundamental distinctions are clearly marked in ancient vocabularies. It is this distinction that vetted my interest in the AFP report that appeared in the Sunday Island of May 4,2003 that the defence minister was seeking divine intervention and protection from evil eyes. In the Sunday Island of May 11, 2003 Minister Marapana denied the exorcism report calling it a fabrication meant to ridicule him in the eyes of the public. During that week Minister John Amaratunge while presenting Jeeps to the IGP head of the Police Department which critics paraphrasing Micawber point out that when there were 4 DIG’s result, happiness. Now 40, result in a climate, noxious, inflamed and disaster, admitted that he fears opening the daily papers because todays killers kill not individuals but families perhaps having in mind the gruesome Hamer family massacre which seems to have been more frightening than the Tate-La Bianca massacres in the US, committed by the drug crazed, Satan worshipping, Mansion family in the seventies. The grim combination of sex, violence, drugs, witchcraft and satanism that lead to slaughters of this nature clearly indicate that a wave of evil is engulfing the so called modern man who only recently learned to walk on his hind legs. Having touched on the subject of evil it is appropriate to recall that evil can be of different kinds. We know that within the created order there are many grades of spirits and we also know that not every spirit is beneficent. This is a truth overlooked in modern times. That there are malefic spirits in the world is not a fable. We know that from hard empirical facts. One does not exorcise fables.

Traditional societies which modern man due to chronological snobbery equate with backwardness, cruelty and ignorance recognised the existence of malign influences and tried not always successfully to protect against such influences. Presumably a great deal of what in our eyes is superstition was instituted to ward off malefic forces of one sort or another. But under the influence of modernism the idea of evil has become discredited. Today even men of the cloth well versed in Holy Writ do not believe in evil but in the wake of increasingly frequent outbursts of satanism modern folks are beginning to reconsider the issue. One of the main marks of stupidity is the impatient rejection of malefic forces. One of the first marks of good judgment, combined with good reasoning power is the appetite for examining such forces. Man has fallen into the habit of measuring everything exactly and neglecting whatever cannot be exactly measured. This is the great intellectual disease of our time and it arose from the success achieved in physical and other sciences through exact measurement. In fact Kepler (1571-1630) spoke for the modern man when he declared that "just as the eye was made to see colours and the ear to hear sounds so the human mind was made to understand not whatever you please but quantity". There was a famous motto inscribed over the portal of the Platonic Academy "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here". Plato even drew God into the subject of measurement when he wrote in the Timaeus "God geometrizes always". With that Man became thoroughly convinced that the universe from the movement of stars and planets to the fine process of life is rigidly determined by measurement. As Laplace said to Napoleon when asked whether he believed in God "Sir I have no need for that hypothesis". I too suffered from the disease of measurement for a considerable time until malefic forces destroyed the 2000 year old Latin Mass. It is true that the world is infested with charlatans and society must be on its guard against them like the atomic scientist who claimed to cure rheumatism with hypnotism. That does not mean there are no malefic forces beyond our control.

Demons are fallen angels. The demonic possessors of women are called incubi. Those of men are called succubi. There is a amazing weekly demonstration of the antics of incubi and succubi in the house of one of my friends, a man of lofty repute and erudition who has put at my disposal his vast library of rare books some of which he is reluctant to lend believing I might lose my faith and intends destroying, which I hope to prevent.

Saint Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians complained "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places". Saint Paul was not complaining about government corruption but of demons who live in high places. Saint Augustine was much vexed with demons. He says "God occupies the loftiest. Demons the lowliest. They are without exception malign. They have no redeeming features. They are the font of all evil most eager to inflict harm, utterly alien from righteousness, swollen with pride, pale with envy and subtle in deceit". Laws of nature are only rules of thumb. What nature is, how universally applicable the laws of nature are we cannot say with certainty. What is certain is that God after he made creation did not retire evil. Great philosophers and poets have touched on the mystery of evil. Even though he tried to extinguish Man’s fear of evil, Lucretius speaks of Man’s fear at being born into evil. Horace knows Man feels fear when faced with evil because he feels it contradicts his own nature . Whatever reformists, new agers, modernists, rationalists have to say when confronted with evil I listen to the old motto of the ascetics "salvation lies in flight", which a rationalist friend used with profit when confronted by the Desapremies. God has made me economically strong and unusually healthy to allow me spend more time writing his side of the story. Recently, I came across the poem The Encounters of an Adventurous Snail by Garcia Lorca which wonderfully illustrates the point about evil. In his quest for answers the snail embarks on a journey through the woods seeking a reason for evil. After an encounter with two old) embittered, rationalist, frogs who question him about the purpose of his useless journey the snail meets a pack of ants who are brutally beating one of their own.

The snail learns that the tortured ant had threatened the social structure by stepping out of the production line climbing one of the tallest trees in the forest and gazing at planet earth. As the little ant recounts her view the pack grows increasingly violent in their attempts to silence her.

Still the dying ant insists she has seen evil. Evil results from the secularization of the clergy and clericalization of the laity as seen in a diocese where laymen called "Eucharistic Ministers" whom I prefer to call "Lavender Mafia" distribute communion.